4 - The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)

Summary

Freud shows that dreams, via the process of element-by-element analysis, can be inserted into the occupations of dreamers’ waking mental life, of which dreams, as analyzed, represent an improvement for the dreamer. It is less clear that dreams themselves accomplish that outcome, that they fulfill a wish. Freud does not offer any grounds independent of the analysis itself that dreams arise for that purpose. Counterarguments he proposes, like that dream analyses could not arrive at the conclusions they do without the tracks’ having been laid down beforehand, do not salvage the argument.

To try to situate the apparent gap within Freud’s thought and to investigate its implications for his larger program, the next three chapters examine to what degree similar weaknesses appear in his treatment of other subjects.